#Silver exploding higher this morning on a key break of the October 2015 high which has been tested for the last week

8.21am BST

European stock markets are rising at the start of trading, following Asia’s lead.

In London the FTSE 100 has gained 23 points, or 0.4%, to 6377 points.

Brent crude at $40 per baarrel has done a good job of rejecting the notion that without production cuts it’s going to hell in a hand basket. Unless we can un-invent the technology gains of the last few years we won’t see dramatic upside and if the upshot is that oil prices settle into a range and better still, the correlation between non oil-producing countries currencies and the price of oil falls away, then that’s even better.

In the meantime, the oil market’s willingness to get back to business as usual has been greeted by a loud cry of ‘Party On, Dudes’ in equity markets.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Today, we get a new healthcheck on economic confidence in Europe’s largest economy, and hear from the UK’s top central banker.

The bank, which recently agreed to pay out over $5 billion to settle allegations related to the sale of subprime mortgage to investors between 2005 and 2007, is also forecast to report a 36.6 percent year-on-year drop in revenue, to $6.73 billion in the first three months of 2016 from $10.6 billion.

Goldman’s pretax profit is also expected to take a hit and is likely to drop to $1.87 billion from $3.93 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

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